Hi David, I bought myself 3 Cereproc and 1 Ivona voice (I think I'm addicted) But I've noticed that some of the phonetic alphabet is messed up and sounds very strange. Have you used some special spellings to improve on the old way speech used to be with TTS perhaps? The reason I ask is that I've now tested the full phonetic alphabet on all on my voices outside of Pilot2ATC and it's all pronounced correctly. Is there any way we as the user can edit these pronunciations?

Thanks.

There is no way for users to edit the pronunciations.  

Other than spelling "winds" as "whinds" to avoid it being pronounced with a long i as in "wind a watch", there are no special spellings in the P2A grammar.

 

When I enter a call sign for example 9NX when you look in the window it’s spelt as  Nine NovemberXray eg no space between the letters in this example. Also X-Ray is the correct way to say Xray but in P2ATC it’s spelt like the later, Xray sounds like Zray when spoken by TTS. I wonder if this lack of space between phonetics is what is corrupting the speech sometimes in certain combinations?

Edited August 10, 20196 yr by Andydigital

Yes, spacing errors can cause issues.  If you notice specific ones, let me know what you're doing, for example requesting takeoff clearance, and I can see if there's an error in the phrase build.  Do you recall what you were doing when you got the error in the example?

Thanks,

Dave

No sorry I don’t but I’ll keep an eye out for it later when I do another flight.

2 hours ago, Dave-Pilot2ATC said:

There is no way for users to edit the pronunciations.  

Other than spelling "winds" as "whinds" to avoid it being pronounced with a long i as in "wind a watch", there are no special spellings in the P2A grammar.

 

Actually, the Ivona voices have a pronunciation editor which impacts ALL TTS apps. If one opens the Win 10 speech control panel applet and temporarily selects an Ivona voice as the default voice, one can access the editor via the Voice Selection/Settings button. It also works great if you're tired of hearing abbreviations mispronounced.

Unfortunately, the "wind" thing is a context problem as Windows expects the noun wind to be surrounded with certain word types so in ATIS and tower comms, Windows thinks it's a verb. It is possible to trick Windows though.

Jay - Thanks for the tip. 

I should have been more specific.  I meant that P2A does not offer a way to edit pronunciations or the grammar.

Good to know Ivona does.  Wonder if other voices have a similar feature.

OK I've had another look and the no space between phonetics is everywhere. Just try assigning any call-sign with a number and letter for example "Shamrock 4NX". If you now go and ask for IFR clearance or even just "Shamrock 4NX radio check", have a look at the dialogue record for the reply from ATC in the window in the bottom right corner of P2ATC and you will see that it will show "Shamrock Four NovemberXray reading you load and clear". Like I say there are two errors there, the no space and Xray should be X-ray.

Even if I fix Xray to be pronounced as X-ray within the Ivona Lexicon it's no good because its saying NovemberXray which the lexicon cannot translate. I'd have to add 26 lines to the lexicon with all combinations of AlphaXray, BravoXray etc to get it to work. God forbid if I have to put in 4XX as a call-sign, lol.

Andy,

Thanks for the details.

I was able to duplicate the problem only if I assigned my aircraft an airline call sign with the Call Sign of Shamrock and a Flight Number of "1NX".  Airline Flight Numbers should be all numbers.  If you change the type of flight to Military, then the Shamrock 1NX should work.  However, to be sure you are recognized as an airline, change the Flight number to all numerics, like Shamrock 143.

For the next update, XRay will be changed to X-Ray so pronunciation will be better.  I will also see if I can safely remove the all numeric flight number restriction.

Thanks again,

Dave

Edited August 10, 20196 yr by Dave-Pilot2ATC

3 hours ago, Dave-Pilot2ATC said:

Jay - Thanks for the tip. 

I should have been more specific.  I meant that P2A does not offer a way to edit pronunciations or the grammar.

Good to know Ivona does.  Wonder if other voices have a similar feature.

Not to my knowledge. I tend to use the Ivona voices for ATC controllers, as that is where the pronunciation errors are more obvious.

I have 4 Cepstral voices.  Cepstral provides its own editor, and a useful phonetic guide. Wind has always annoyed me.  Without looking it up, I believe the phonetic is 'whind' 

13 hours ago, Dave-Pilot2ATC said:

If you change the type of flight to Military, then the Shamrock 1NX should work. 

Hi Dave, I tried doing this Military option you mentioned above and it's no different for me, the phonetics still have no space between them exactly like with the Airliner callsign.

You are correct.  The current version would only get it right if you set it up as a GA call sign.

Your best bet is to change the Flight Number to all numerics until the fix comes out.  The fix will allow alpha characters at the beginning and/or end of the flight number.

Thanks for your help shooting this bug.

No worries Dave 👍, happy to help, I absolutely love Pilot2ATC and never fly without it.

Hi, 

Just downloaded the P2A trial last night. Because my tail number is N45SX, one of the first things I noticed was Microsoft Anna's annoying phonetic pronunciation for "X" (Xray). Definitely needs to be spelled as X-ray. I would also suggest spelling phonetic L as Lema instead of Lima. She pronounces the "I" as "eye". All the rest of the phonetic alphabet seems to be okay. 

Also, I am running Windows 7 64-bit, and find Microsoft Anna's voice somewhat difficult to understand. Any suggestions on downloadable voices to replace Anna, preferably free. I've done some Google searching, and it doesn't appear to be that easy to accomplish. Maybe next year I will bite the bullet and go to Windows 10.

Chris